Rural residents left with no signal for four days

The number of volunteer days has soared in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

Published:07:00Saturday 19 July 2014

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Nidderdale residents have been left unable to use their mobile phone for days on end, after the signal dropped on two of country’s biggest networks.

People in Pateley Bridge and surrounding areas who use Vodaphone and O2 have reported losing signal on Sunday (July 13) and say it has yet to be fixed.

Darley resident Carole Cottrill is on O2, she said: “I can’t make any calls, I can’t send any texts.

“I went on the O2 website, and I just can’t find any information or any way to actually speak to a human being about it.

“It is incredibly frustratiing. For me it is just personal use, but it is still frustrating, for businesses it will be worse.”

Rochelle Wilson, admin officer at Nidderdale Plus said she had been contacted by a number of people struggling with their mobile phones.

She said: “From what I can gather it has been going on for three or four days now. We have had people contact us on Twitter and Facebook, including a lady who works as a childminder and she can’t text parents.

“I have heard of people having to drive all the way to Ripley before they get any messages. A lot of people use mobiles for work so people are struggling.”

A spokesman for Telefónica UK Limited which owns O2 said: “Our third party suppliers are working to repair their damaged fibre cables between Birstwith and Harrogate which provides connectivity to our site in Pateley Bridge.”

Vodaphone’s spokesman added: “I’ve spoken to our network team. They have identified that there are currently some issues with our service in the Harrogate area.

“The team are currently looking into this as a matter of priority.

“We’d like to say sorry to any of our customers in the area who may be experiencing problems with our coverage at the moment.”

This problem comes as it was announced that signal in and around the Yorkshire Dales National Park will be boosted after a new agreement with the mobile operators association.

England’s National Parks stand to benefit from improved mobile coverage in ways that respect their very sensitive environment, following a landmark agreement between National Parks England the Mobile Operators Association.

NOTE: A spokesman from 02 confirmed that service had been restored at 1pm on Wednesday July 16 and said: “We’d like to apologise to our customers who were affected by this problem.”